PODCAST: Accelerated care for geriatric patients

A few years ago, older patients were presenting at Liverpool Hospital in Sydney’s south-west and being treated by emergency staff.

Image credit: www.hospitalandagedcare.com.au

Senior ASET (Aged Care Services in Emergency Team) at Liverpool Hospital, Elise Tcharkhedian, explains the problem was that many geriatric patients were not being identified as having delirium early on. And, at times, emergency staff were sedating them and not treating the patients appropriately.

But things have changed. Now, the hospital is using a multidisciplinary team targeting seniors presenting at hospital with delirium via aged care medical staff who assess the senior patient.

The result, she says, is that older people are moved through the hospital quicker, there are fewer instances of unnecessary sedation and treatment is more directed.

Ms Tcharkhedian, who is also an Emergency Department Physiotherapist at Liverpool Hospital, was one member of staff behind the pilot project employed.

She talks to H&A in the podcast below about the ‘Accelerated Admission Pathway’, from its beginnings as a trial for geriatric patients presenting to Liverpool ED with delirium to its expansion to identify other older patients suitable for accelerated admission under Geriatric Medicine.